About us
Our story
At Travel Counsellors, we are more than just a travel company - we are a community of caring professionals dedicated to creating extraordinary travel experiences for our customers. And whilst we're proud of what we have achieved together over the past 30 years... we think the best is yet to come!
How it all began
We were founded in 1994 in anticipation of the shift towards travel professionals running their own leisure or corporate travel businesses from home.
Our pioneering ways of working meant our Travel Counsellors could provide an unrivalled level of personal care and attention for their customers when creating bespoke travel experiences.
Care is at the heart of everything we do, the golden thread that runs through our business and connects us all together. Doing the right thing for our people, customers and clients is what makes us special.
Our entrepreneurial spirit and dedication to offering a truly personalised travel service, underpinned by the values of trust and customer intimacy, remain as true today as they did back then. Everything we do is designed to make a real difference, and we recognise that people will always remember what we did by the way we made them feel.
Now, as a community of over 2000 Travel Counsellors and 300 support colleagues in six different countries, these principles continue to guide us to new heights. We'd love you to join us as the best is still to come...!
Highlights over the years
1994
Travel Counsellors is founded.
1999
We welcome our 100th Travel Counsellor to the family
2003
We’re the very first travel company to win the Queen's Award for Enterprise in the Innovation category
2004
We launch our own unique financial trust in the UK, to ensure our customers' money is 100% safe when booking with us, no matter what
2005
Our growth continues apace, as we launch Travel Counsellors in Ireland and the Netherlands
2006
We launch our bespoke-built, in-house travel booking platform, Phenix. It enables our people to create truly tailor-made travel itineraries.
2007
We welcome Travel Counsellors in South Africa
2008
Our 1,000th Travel Counsellor joins the company
2011
Travel Counsellors is named in The Telegraph 1,000 Britain’s Brightest Businesses
2012
Our global expansion continues, as we expand into the UAE, and again in 2013, when we open in Belgium
A new chapter
2014
With our 20th-year celebrations comes a significant financial investment from private equity firm Equistone Partners Europe.
2015
We move Travel Counsellors headquarters from its birthplace in Bolton to stunning new £2m premises at Trafford City in Manchester.
2016
As we continue to scale and grow, we recruit the 300th member of our global support team.
2017
The myTC app is launched. With a 4+ star rating on the Apple and Android store as of June 2023, over 15,000 users a year enjoy the paperless experience of having their travel documentation all in one app and connecting to their Travel Counsellor at the tap of a button.
2018
Vitruvian Partners back our high-growth, tech-enabled platform.
2019
We’re awarded ‘Best National Travel Retailer’ at the British Travel Awards, a title we retain in 2020 too.
2020
We scoop the ‘Queen’s Award for Enterprise’ for the third time in the same year that our first corporate travel MD is appointed.
2022
We’re proud to be named ‘The Best Place to Work in Travel’ at the 2022 Travel Industry Awards by TTG and climb the rankings in the Sunday Times PwC Top Track 250 for the sixth consecutive year.
Fast-forward to the present
We celebrated a record-breaking year in 2023, with sales approaching the £1bn mark and our 2,000th Travel Counsellor joining the community. We were delighted to enjoy our biggest sales month in history in January 2023, taking bookings exceeding £114m in value. And perhaps most important of all - we retained our 5 star Excellent Trustpilot customer rating.
“Travel Counsellors is built on people and the way we look after each other and our customers, putting care at the heart of everything we do. That singular purpose has remained true since we were founded 30 years ago. While the world around us keeps changing, those are the things in our company that never will, and that are in more demand than ever before.”
